


Falling Sideways

by phiremangston



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-17
Updated: 2010-04-17
Packaged: 2017-10-09 00:24:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phiremangston/pseuds/phiremangston
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's here.  He's had a suspicion that Rachel was becoming more and more drawn to this place, ever since she first laid foot inside Arkham Asylum, six months ago.  Most people return to the asylum in one form or another, sometimes not knowing they want to be there.  But inherently, they all do.  And they all return, in their time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Sideways

“But--”

 

“Dr. Crane is currently the only qualified psychiatrist in the city, and he has kindly offered to take the position of psychiatric evaluator for this firm.  I don't see why you have such a problem with this, Miss Dawes.”

 

Rachel sighs and runs a hand through her hair in exasperation.  After the water-main incident, Jonathan Crane was quickly reinstated as head of Arkham Asylum, despite the protests of Bruce Wayne, and Rachel herself.  Though Crane was clearly not in his right mind, the higher ups of Gotham City demanded that someone be in charge of the “nuthouse;” there are now at least three times as many patients since Ra's Al Ghul's attack.

 

Much as Rachel hates to admit it, she can see why very few people actually believe Crane was responsible for the release of the fear toxin.  Though his obsession with the study of fear is well-known throughout the city, there are no direct connections to acquaint him with this particular experiment.  Ra's Al Ghul ended up with all the blame laid on him, and Crane was considered to be just a victim caught in the crosswinds.

 

“I just...he makes me uncomfortable, Mr. Dent.”

 

Rachel turns and walks out to the street, feeling Harvey Dent's eyes on her back as she leaves.  As soon as she's out of eyesight, she visibly shudders and walks more quickly toward the train station.  The streets are dank and the sidewalks covered in overgrown weeds. 

 

She has to take the long route to get to her destination, since the direct line to Wayne Enterprises is still being repaired.  She'll have to walk a few blocks, but it will be worth it.  She could use some air anyway.  The air in most parts of Gotham City is still slightly stale from the rapid release of chemicals, and it makes Rachel a little queasy.  She hurries through the streets, eyes alert for anyone who belongs in Arkham Asylum, but has avoided detainment.

 

As she reaches Wayne Enterprises and steps into the warm, bright lobby, Rachel allows herself to breathe a sigh of relief.  She's felt nervous walking alone since the incident; there are still a lot of fear-overtaken citizens wandering about.  But the Gotham residents don't frighten her nearly as much as the rich and powerful; everyone is too afraid to put the wealthy into a psych ward, so a lot of them are on the streets.  The press just says such people have gone missing, or even ended up dead, to try to preserve what's left of their reputations.

 

Rachel approaches the front desk, and asks for Lucius Fox.  As she's led to the elevator, she revels in the noise and busy atmosphere of the area.  It's comforting, knowing there are so many...normal people still around here.

 

  

  1. She hugs him back, briefly, then pulls back and holds him at arm's length, his hands in hers.
  



 

“How are you, Lucius?”  She asks.  He looks tired, but content, like he has accomplished something of importance today.

 

“Good, good.”  He nods and smiles, then sits down behind his desk, and gestures for her to do the same.  “But you don't look quite so well yourself.  Have you been getting enough sleep?”

 

Rachel doesn't answer; instead, she gazes out the window to avoid Lucius's eyes.  Now that she's here, it seems like a silly thing to ask one of her friends to pull some strings and fire virtually the only psychiatrist left in the city.

 

“Rachel?”  She shakes her head at Lucius's voice, clearing it.  Rachel bites at her lip, a nervous habit she's had since she was a little girl.  For a moment, she considers just standing up and leaving his office, but something stops her.  Surely Lucius would understand.  He's known her since she was a little girl.  He knows how insane Crane is.  He would help her.

 

“Dr. Crane is the head psychiatrist of the city.”  She stands up and starts pacing around the room, twisting her hands around each other.  “Ever since the...incident.  I don't like it.”  She looks back around to Lucius, whose hands are steepled, making him look slightly like a priest.  Rachel continues, perfectly aware that it makes her sound selfish, and not caring.  “He's our psych evaluator for the firm.  Evaluations are tomorrow, and...I don't think I can do it.  He makes me --”

 

Lucius's eyes are full of concern.  “You're afraid he'll drug you again?”

 

Rachel nods.

“But there is a vaccine for it, now.  You'll be perfectly safe.”

 

“He won't have made another formula for it, will he?”

 

Lucius folds his hands on the desk.  “It's unlikely.  I think Dr. Crane knows better than to take a leap of faith, at least of this sort.  He knows people will be keeping an eye on him.  The Doctor is not an idiot, which is part of the reason why he's such a threat.”

 

“Dangerous and too intelligent for his own good.  Like Hitler.”  Rachel shudders, and crosses her arms.

 

Strangely enough, Lucius gives a half-smile, lost in thought.  “Is he, though?  Dr. Crane has committed a form of genocide, but not entirely by his own choice.  He was coerced into creating the fear toxin, but he viewed it as a way to study human behavior, in its own right.  The League of Shadows, however, saw it as a way to rid the world of evil.  Dr. Crane believed he would be paid for his experiment, not become a victim of his own creation.”

 

Rachel frowns.  “That doesn't make him any less of a monster.  True, what the League did was evil, but Crane --”

 

“Crane was doing what he thought would help advance science and medicine.  He's slightly out of his mind, but then again, so was Ra's Al Ghul.  And he was doing what he thought was right, too.”

 

“There's no way that what Ra's Al Ghul did was right, Lucius.”

 

“No, no, it wasn't right.  Not in any aspect of the word.  I said he _thought_ it was right.  What Ra's Al Ghul never realized is that there was a flaw in his plan of ridding the world of evil.”

 

Rachel quirked an eyebrow, curious now.  “And what was that?”

“You cannot rid the world of all evil.  If there is only peace, people will eventually revolt, break out in fights, kill...even more than before.  Something will eventually happen to break that peace.  Pure peace, and for that matter, pure evil cannot exist alone for long.”

 

“Then how has Crane existed for so long?”  Rachel smirks.

 

“Be careful how you judge people, Rachel.  No matter what he's done or who he's harmed, he's still human.  Remember that.”

 

 

Jonathan Crane taps his pen on the table in front of him.  It's getting to be annoying.

 

“So...”

 

Rachel rolls her eyes and crosses her arms.  “It's been three minutes of complete silence, and all you say is 'so'?”

 

More silence.

 

Rachel glares at him, and he just stares back at her, a stoic expression planted firmly on his face.  Unmoving.

 

Unlike his pen.

  
Which is still tapping, incessantly.

 

“Will you stop that?”

 

“Why?”  He continues after a short pause.  It's giving Rachel a headache.

 

“It unnerves me.”  She snatches the pen away from him, and he pulls another out of his briefcase,  starting the tapping again.

 

Rachel sighs and tries to think about something else.

 

The tapping stops.  She looks back at him; he's scribbling something on his notepad. 

 

Now she's confused.  What's she done to merit a note on Crane's papers?  As she's trying to get a glimpse of what he's written, she feels his eyes on her.  Rachel slowly looks up, meeting his cold blue eyes.  There's a strange expression in them, almost a mix of complete professionalism, with a hint of amusement he seems to be trying to hold back.

 

“What?”  Something about the way Crane looks at her has always made Rachel a little bit uneasy, and being alone in a small room with him doesn't help matters much.

 

“Do you ever have nightmares, Miss Dawes?  I do assume it is still 'Miss'?”

 

She narrows her eyes at him.  “Occasionally.  And it's no business of yours whether I'm married or not, Crane.”

 

His pen moves toward the notebook again.  “It's merely for professional documentation.  How often do these nightmares occur?”

 

Rachel pauses.  She's never really kept track of those nights she wakes up in a cold sweat, clutching to her sheets until her knuckles turn white.  She always tries to shove those deep to the end of her consciousness, ever since the night terrors started, a week after the incident.

 

“Once a week, sometimes twice.”

 

“What do you dream about?”

 

“Them.  The people affected by your fear toxin.”

 

Crane chuckles lightly.  Rachel doesn't consider that to be an appropriate response to what she had just said.

 

“Most would just refer to them as 'crazies' or 'nutjobs.' But not you.  Why?”

 

“They aren't insane by choice.  You made them that way.”  Rachel glares at him.  Crane shows no indication that he's seen her expression, even though he's been staring at her intently for a good five minutes now.

 

“Most people aren't.”  Crane's face softens a bit, and now his sharp features don't seem quite so intimidating.  “Though I did distribute the toxin throughout the city and fine-tuned the product, I cannot take all of the credit for that experiment.  The man I was working for provided me with the ingredients needed for the toxin, and he was the one who triggered its initial release into the city.  I took no part in that.  You must remember, Miss Dawes, that I was a victim in the matter too.” Indeed, his features now make him look almost feminine.  Beautiful.  But...he's a monster.

 

“You were...like them.  You're not anymore.”  Rachel is having trouble digesting this part of the story.  “How could you still be --”

 

“Sane?  Do you really think, Miss Dawes, that I would have created the toxin without first making myself an antidote?”

 

“Of course, but you were tied up, in Arkham --”

 

“It is far easier for a sane person to act crazy than for a crazy person to act sane, Miss Dawes.  I was merely doing what I had to to survive.”

 

This has never occurred to her before today.

 

“Then, outside...you were acting then, too.”

 

“Heavens, no.  But thanks to that taser you fired at me, which sparked an electric reaction in my brain, I had enough sanity left in me to remember that I had the antidote, right there in my pocket.  That horse nearly killed me.”

 

“Good,” she mutters under her breath.

 

Again, Crane's eyes linger on her in a piercing gaze, making Rachel incredibly uncomfortable.  Finally he tilts his head to the side, in an almost thoughtful way, and scribbles a final note in his unreadable handwriting.

 

“Miss Dawes, would you be so kind as to give this to Mr. Dent as soon as you leave.”  It isn't a question.  Rachel takes the paper, and tries to decipher its contents, but this proved to be impossible.  Crane obviously has a terrible case of chicken scratch.

 

As Rachel climbs the stairs to Harvey Dent's office, she feels her stomach drop an inch each step she takes.  She isn't sure why, but for some reason she's confident that whatever is on that paper can't be good.  At least not for her.

 

Rachel knocks, and hears a man's voice answer.  “Come in.”  She hands the note to Mr. Dent,  and after he's read it, he confirms Rachel's suspicions.  “Miss Dawes, according to Dr. Crane's evaluation, you will be attending sessions with him for the next few weeks.  Every Monday, in his office at Arkham.  These are the directions.”  He hands her another piece of paper.  Then he returns to his desk, and simply looks at her until Rachel nods and leaves the room.

 

 

Jonathan checks his watch; it's half-past five o'clock, and there is no sign that Rachel has any intention whatsoever of appearing in his office.  Jonathan smirks to himself, since if she doesn't show up tonight, that will be the second session in a row that she's missed, and Mr. Dent would have to have a little chat with her.

 

Rachel stopped coming to his sessions after she woke up the morning after their last session, on his couch, with a  splitting headache.  Presumably she went off to ask Lucius Fox what Jonathan had slipper her, and Lucius correctly guessed sodium pentothal.  It's a simple chemical formula used to lower one's inhibitions; Jonathan was merely trying to get Rachel to tell him more than she was letting on.  The topic was relationships.  Jonathan had chosen sodium pentothal because it is more reliable than hypnosis, and less dangerous than using an alcoholic beverage.  He doesn't want to destroy her brain's capacity to think and make logical conclusions, just make her more...relaxed.

 

Rachel has a pretty face.  Pretty faces are subject to lying. 

 

_Click.  Click.  Click, click, click._

 

Jonathan smiles.  She's here.  He's had a suspicion that Rachel was becoming more and more drawn to this place, ever since she first laid foot inside Arkham Asylum, six months ago.  Most people return to the asylum in one form or another, sometimes not knowing they want to be there.  But inherently, they all do.  And they all return, in their time.

 

The cherry oak door swings open, and reveals a tired, pale face.  Jonathan frowns slightly.

 

“You're overworked, Rachel.”  He notes that she doesn't even respond to the change of the way he addresses her anymore; perhaps she's more comfortable here now, or just doesn't care.  Either way, it's an advancement.

 

_She has a sense of familiarity about this place, now.  It shall become more noticeable in the future._

 

Rachel drops heavily into the tan leather chair sitting across from his desk.  Another advancement.  She used to lie down on the couch when she came in.  Now she sits directly across from him, so as to look him directly in the eye, rather than let her eyes and mind wander.

 

_Confrontation.  She feels confrontation is necessary in order to overcome her fear._

 

“If you were working four cases at once, you'd feel the same as I do, Dr. Crane.”  Rachel's voice is brisk, professional, but her voice catches when she says his name.  Jonathan ignores it, and pulls an apple strudel from the toaster on his bookshelf when the timer pings.  He hands it to her, and is surprised when she doesn't look at him suspiciously as she takes a bite.  She merely gazes at the toaster in thought. 

 

“On the contrary, Rachel.  I know exactly how you feel.  I, myself, am currently working on two paranoid schizophrenia cases and three obsessive-compulsive disorder victims.  I think you just need to learn to manage your time better.”

 

Jonathan stands and strides to the back of Rachel's chair.  He slowly starts rubbing her shoulders in a smooth, continuous motion.  He feels her relax, almost instantly, and she heaves a sigh beneath his hands.  He continues like this, massaging her tense neck and back muscles, until a few minutes later Rachel reaches up and places her hand on his, stopping him.  She twists and stands, so she's standing with the chair between them.

 

_She still needs a sense of separation in order to feel safe, Jonathan thinks to himself.  He looks down to see her hand still atop his; up to find her warm brown eyes gazing steadily into his._

 

Rachel leans closer to him, and Jonathan thinks his breathing stopped for a moment. 

 

_Perhaps not._

 

“It's not right,” she whispers, and wraps an arm around his neck as she presses her lips to his.  Jonathan has only kissed a handful of women, but never like this.  Almost immediately Rachel slips her tongue into his mouth, and her hand slides up the back of his shirt, sending chills up his spine.  He does his best to keep up with her, but Jonathan's not quite used to such...aggressive women.

 

_Stockholm._

 

Jonathan finally brings himself to reach up and touch her hair, which was softer than any suit a client could buy for him. 

 

“No, no it's not.”  Jonathan plants kisses on her neck, one by one, until he reaches the spot just below her ear.  She shivers, and Jonathan isn't sure whether she'll have bruises there tomorrow.  He realizes he really doesn't care, and she probably doesn't either, judging by the way she's been acting today.

 

As he starts to unbutton Rachel's shirt, he thinks of something.

 

She really is intoxicatingly beautiful.

 

Beautiful women are dangerous creatures.  But Jonathan has always been able to adapt easily.  And she couldn't be any more dangerous than himself.

 

He's had secrets before, but never secrets about a woman. 

 

She'll be his secret, his dirty little secret.

 

Because if anyone finds out about them, they'll surely be ruined.  And he can't have that, now, can he?


End file.
